Cold Nose, Warm Heart
by zneeze
Summary: Agents Claudia Donovan and Steve Jinks search for an illness-inducing artifact at an arts high school. Sneezefic (Sneezy!Claudia plus minor characters) being simultaneously posted on a fetish forum. If that makes you uncomfortable, no flaming, please, just don't read it. ;) NOT shipping Claudia/Jinks other than their adorable brother/sister relationship :)
1. Chapter 1

"We got a ping" was not the first thing Pete wanted to hear Artie say when he and Myka walked into the warehouse. They had just returned from a tricky case in Dublin, Ireland, chasing down and eventually bagging a nineteenth-century brooch infused with the suffering of the Irish Potato Famine, so much so that it could cause localized blight and famine when dropped into soil.

"Hello, to you too, Artie. You're quite welcome for the artifact! How've you been the last four days?" Pete asked sarcastically.

"Well, excuse me, I didn't hear you coming in. I was calling Claudia and Steve, actually. The artifact?"

"One brooch from the Irish Potato Famine, neutralized and no longer a threat to the Republic of Ireland," Myka recited. "I don't usually say this, but I need a spa day after that one."

"Me too," Pete agreed, not necessarily kidding. In his best Irish accent, which he had undoubtedly practiced in Dublin, he added, "And if ye think ye be sending me partner and me out on another mission, I'll beat ye with me shillelagh."

"Alright, I get it, you're tired," Artie acquiesced. "You two deserve a break."

Claudia bounced in from the other room, closely followed by Steve. "You rang, Artie? Hey, guys, how was Ireland?"

Both Pete and Myka just groaned as they both dropped down on the couch.

"Oh. Cool," Claudia replied.

"Yes, I 'rang,'" said Artie. "There was a ping from Kalamazoo, Michigan – "

"And do you have a gal in Kalamazoo, dear Arthur?"

"No, Claudia. There's been an outbreak at the MAPA – "

"Napa? That's in California. I thought you said Kalamazoo?" asked Steve.

"Can I ever finish a sentence around here?" yelled Artie. "MAPA, the Michigan Academy of the Performing Arts. An upstart magnet school just ten years old. Several students there have recently contracted some strange sickness, but their only real symptoms are a high fever and frequent sneezing."

"That's weird, like a common cold on steroids?" asked Claudia.

Artie was his old impatient self. "I don't know, that's what you need to figure out. An artifact is causing it, so you and Agent Jinks go fix it!"

As Claudia and Steve left to prepare for their mission, Artie turned to Pete and Myka, saying, "Sometimes you need to hit them over the head with – "

He saw that Pete and Myka had both already fallen asleep – passed out was more like it – on top of each other on the couch, and he sighed.


	2. Chapter 2

"So Kalamazoo was the birthplace of the Gibson Guitar Corporation," Claudia was excitedly telling Steve as they drove into the city.

"I knew you would bring that up – again," Steve joked.

"You've heard me do my thang, Jinksy!" It was true – the very day Steve Jinks met Warehouse Agents for the first time, when he was still with the ATF, he had found Claudia playing riffs on Jimi Hendrix's guitar as Pete and Artie were swapping the artifact out for an impostor. She still snuck into the Warehouse to jam out on it from time to time.

"If we're going to a performing arts school, maybe we'll stumble across the next Hendrix!"

"In Michigan?" Steve asked.

"It could happen!"

They both laughed before Steve said, "Well, schools like this specialize more in theatre, dance and voice, usually, but besides that they're just like other high schools."

"Except other high schools don't have artifact problems like this one does," said Claudia. "So what were your high school days like? I bet you were the one with the letterman's sweater with the letter in the front, for football and track?"

"Not really," said Jinks, not finding the Beach Boys quote funny. He had a far-off look. "Those weren't really my favorite years," he said after a while.

"Why not?"

"It wasn't easy being gay in high school. Generally people were accepting, but I was still getting used to everything, and for a few years there it was rough dealing with everything… and everyone."

"You were bullied?" Claudia couldn't picture it.

"Sometimes. It was tough until I learned I had to choose which battles to fight, and whose opinions to worry about," said Steve. "After that it got easier."

Claudia didn't know what to say from the shock of the thought. Steve Jinks was the last person she could imagine having to deal with bullying in high school. Sure, it made sense, him being homosexual in an unforgiving place like a high school. But Jinks – Jinksy, as she'd nicknamed him early on – was always so strong, like an older brother to her. No, it was too much to think about. Too hard to think about.

The two friends remained quiet for the rest of the drive to MAPA.

"I thought Artie said this building was ten years old?" Claudia asked.

... ... ... ... ... ...

The pair had just reached the Academy, and the brick building looked just as old as it was big.

"He said the institution was ten years old, but not necessarily the building," Jinks pointed out as they walked in. "It looks like the building's much older than the school."

Nothing seemed weird or off about the building, other than its age, and nothing seemed to be wrong with the students passing in the halls, either. It wasn't a cacophony of sneezing, as Claudia had pictured before they landed in Michigan. It was a normal high school, albeit with an artsy flair. Framed pictures of past dance recitals, musicals, concerts, and the like lined the walls.

But nobody seemed to be sick. That is, not until the two agents entered the infirmary.

The first thing they heard upon entering was a loud shriek of a sneeze, "HAH-EHHHHSH!," muffled behind a closed door but still loud enough to make both agents jump.

"I think that was a girl… or some sort of a sea monster, either way," said Claudia under her breath.

"Claude…" Steve whispered. "What kind of sickness are we dealing with here?"

Before Claudia could answer, a flustered-looking nurse hurried in from a different patient room. "Excuse me, can I help you?" she asked.

"Yes, we're here from the Department of Health and Human Services." In a more criminal case, it would be easy for any Warehouse agent to flash their Secret Service badge, but for a possible pandemic, saying this seemed more plausible. "We're investigating an illness with strange symptoms somebody reported to us."

The nurse went on the offensive. "Who reported that to you?" she asked with a scowl.

"An… anonymous concerned parent," said Claudia.

The nurse began to talk fast out of frustration. "I told them not to report anything, don't see your doctor yet, she'll be just fine in a few days, but no, they go out of their way to disobey me, we don't need the attention here, not now, and you know what the symptoms aren't even as strange as people are saying! …I'm Mrs. Harrison, by the way."

As she awkwardly shook hands first with Steve and then with Claudia, Claudia replied, "Well, Mrs. Harrison, the parent was probably concerned about her child's health, and she has a right to tell a doctor if she's worried."

"I'm sorry, it's just been very… busy here the last few days," said Mrs. Harrison.

Steve finally spoke up. "How many students have been infected?"

"Well, today there's been I believe four more, so that totals nine." The same girl from before was heard sneezing another "HAH-EHHHSH!" again from her room. "That's one of them."

"Ma'am, you said the symptoms _aren't_ strange?" asked Steve.

"In my opinion, they aren't. It just looks like an extremely bad cold to me. The sneezing is pretty excessive, stuffy noses, you get the idea, and most of them have fevers. There's not much besides that, so I don't know why everyone's getting particularly worried."

"Fair enough. We believe you, Mrs. Harrison," said Claudia. "But just so you understand, we've been assigned to investigate this case anyway. But we promise to stay out of your way and not report anything exaggerated. We're on your side here."

"Ok, I understand," said Mrs. Harrison. "I apologize for my little meltdown before. I swear I'm not usually like that!"

"Alright, don't worry about it. Thank you again!" said Steve.

"And if you need anything else, my door is open!" Mrs. Harrison called to them on their way out.

The door shut behind them, and Claudia sighed. "Well?"

"She was telling the truth the whole time."

"What good is it having a human lie detector around when people only tell the truth?" the redhead teased.

The pair needed to sort through the profiles of the victims Artie had attached in their files, to try to find a connection among them. They wanted to sit for a while to do this, so they silently walked into the open doors of the nearest classroom.

"Whoa. This is a classroom?" Claudia asked.

It was – and it was also a tiny theater with about 30 seats and a small stage, likely used for rehearsals. A dance rehearsal was going on onstage, and a handful of other students were watching from the seats.

For a while, Claudia and Steve quietly sorted through their notes in the back of the room, but soon they realized just how talented these dancers were. They stopped to watch the practice for a little while. There were eight girls, each about seventeen or eighteen years old, each wearing black leotards and tights, doing a complex jazz dance routine to "Sing, Sing, Sing," the Benny Goodman standard. Their choreographer stood on the ground in front of stage watching and from time to time shouting direction.

"I'm not even into this stuff," Claudia whispered, "but damn, they're good."

About twenty seconds later, the girl farthest to the audience's left, a tall blonde, stopped dancing and got a strange, contorted look on her face. She took a few harried steps away from her still-dancing companions and let out a quiet, "Hachoo!"

Steve looked at Claudia worriedly. "Uh-oh."

"Hachoo! Hachoo!" Before they knew it, the dancer rapidly sneezed twice more, as though the sneezes were taking her by surprise. Her soft sneezing was barely audible over the music, so most of the dancers hadn't noticed. The instructor didn't seem to pay heed either, but the students observing the practice were all transfixed on the poor, sneezy blonde in the corner. She doubled over with two more sneezes. "Hachoo! Huchoo!"

"This is bad," said Claudia, and she and Steve got up to help her. She had stumbled her way off the stage, still sneezing periodically, and some of the students had also gotten up to help her. The music had just ended, so the dancers and instructor made their way over to her as well.

"Okay, this is too many people now," said Steve. "We're crowding her! Just get her to the infirmary!"

Two students complied, taking either side of her and walking her towards the door in the back of the studio. As they walked past, Steve could feel the body heat of the infected student emanating off her from a few feet away, and sweat poured down her face, more so than the other girls who had completed the dance routine. It had to be her fever.

"Hachoo! Heh-_chooo_!"

Steve took his partner aside as they left the room. "Claude, this is a big school, but it's a crowded school. If we don't stop this soon, the whole school could get infected… and maybe more than that."


	3. Chapter 3

"Add Melissa Roberts to the list," Steve told Claudia as he came out of the infirmary. "That's the name of our newest victim. And it isn't exactly allergies, either. Her temperature is suddenly 102, and she said she felt perfectly fine this morning."

"I just talked to the two kids who brought her to the nurse," Claudia replied, "Harry Potter and the Warthog…"

"Do you have to be so mean? Just 'cause the boy had big dark-rimmed glasses, and the girl had one wart – "

"Relax, Jinksy, I'm just being playful! I didn't call them that to their faces – "

"Sometimes it can hurt even more if it's behind their backs."

Claudia was about to ask him why he was getting so defensive for the sakes of two high school kids he had never met, but she realized that was the point. She had learned earlier that Steve hated bullies, and she didn't want him to hate her. She started over. "I'm sorry, you're right. The two kids who brought her to the nurse, _Clayton _and_ Brianne_, said they had never seen Melissa sneeze like that before. The students around here seem to be accepting that this… disease... _thing_ is going around, like they're almost expecting it at this point."

"Could a student have gotten himself and other people sick so they could avoid a test or something?" Steve asked. "That's what we did when I was in school, except, you know, we faked being sick, we didn't have an artifact to help."

"Nope, I don't think so," Claudia said after sifting through the files again. "That's ten kids sick now, and very few of them have much in common, class wise. Some are here for theater, some for dance, two are creative writing."

"That's five new patients today according to Mrs. Harrison, and there were five total _before_ today. Claude, it's spreading fast."

Claudia was about to say something when they both heard Mrs. Harrison again. They turned and saw her, standing outside the infirmary arguing with a man in a brown suit.

"We already have the Department of Health snooping around here, so we don't need any more big wigs like you making the situation worse!"

"I'm telling you, neither of us have a choice in the matter! If something is wrong with the building, the council needs to know!" the suit replied.

Mrs. Harrison stormed back into the infirmary. The suit had turned away from the infirmary, toward the two agents, and immediately became suspicious.

"Who are you?" he asked them.

"Department of Health, who are you?" Claudia asked in return, not without a bit of her trademark sass.

"Greg Cumberland, Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs." He reached out to shake their hands. "We fund MAPA."

"Are you here investigating the plague they've got going on here too?" Steve asked.

"Why else? I told the council from the start, it was a bad location."

"What do you mean?" asked Claudia.

"I was never in favor of choosing this building as our location for MAPA ten years ago. Do you know how old this place is? Sixty-six years old, it was built in the 1940s, and with little renovation since then. It's crumbling!"

"We can tell."

"So I wasn't exactly surprised when they told me there was some disease going on here. It has to be from the mold in the building! They found mold here five years ago, and thank goodness it wasn't harmful."

"You think it's from the mold?" said Steve.

"None of the sick kids felt sick at home, they all started developing their symptoms here. I don't see what other explanation would fit! See, I wanted to put MAPA right in Detroit. There was a perfect, big, _younger _building we could have used, but the rest of the council stupidly wanted this one."

"So what if this building does have mold they can't get rid of?"

"We can generate the funds to build a new building in Detroit," said Cumberland. "It would really be a better location anyway, and there's even a plot of land we could buy cheap."

"Mr. Cumberland, that's a gorgeous ring you have there," said Claudia, a bright ARTIFACT sign flashing in her mind. "How long have you had it?"

"How long have I had this ring?" Cumberland asked, looking at his gold-plated ring with dark blue stone. "Eleven years. Gift from a friend. Why?"

"Just wondering, sorry to bother you! Take care!" Jinks said immediately, and he motioned Claudia – practically helped her by the hand – to walk away.

"He was telling the truth about the ring," said Jinks when they were far enough away.

"That doesn't mean it might not be an artifact!" said Claudia. "His friend could have potentially given him an artifact as a gift eleven years ago. Wait, was he telling the truth when he said he thought the mold was to blame?"

"Well…"

"Well what?"

Steve was embarrassed. "He never out-and-out said that. He danced around giving a straight answer, so I couldn't tell whether he was lying or not..."

"It's okay," Claudia reassured him. "He's still a suspect."

"True. He does have a motive."

"And he let us know in no uncertain terms," Claudia agreed. "But would he really sabotage his own school?"

Jinks couldn't answer, as another girl down the hallway had just begun a violent sneezing fit. The pair heard a quick double, "Heh-ESHOO! Ha-USHOO!" and immediately turned, expecting the worst. A girl of about eighteen, of medium height and with long brown hair, stood crippled in the middle of the hall by her sudden sneezing fit. "HEHchew! HA-USHOO! HESHH!" The students walking around her in the hall kept a distance, with tentative looks on their faces. The two boys she was walking with had stopped and could only watch, until one said, "We need to get you to the infirmary, right now!"

"But Claytod, I cad't! I cad't go home, you dow I have ad auditiod todi-iiih, HAH, HAH-SHOO!"

Claudia and Jinks watched helplessly as the two boys led the girl past them, back towards the infirmary.

"Claude," asked Jinks, "are the victims only girls?"

After shuffling through their files, Claudia replied, "If this one is victim number eleven, there are eight girls and three boys. All three boys got sick over the past few days and aren't in school now."

"She said something about an audition," said Jinks. He looked at a nearby wall, where he had remembered seeing a certain orange flyer. He went back to read it more thoroughly. "_MAPA Auditions for Shakespeare's _The Winter's Tale_ at 7 p.m. _…tonight. Claudia, we're in an arts school. Auditions can mean life or death to some of these kids. What if some girl is trying to sabotage these other girls' chances at getting a part she wants, by making them too sick to audition?"

"But how would that explain the boys getting sick before today, and the girls who aren't focused in theater?" Claudia asked.

"She might've gotten other kids sick on purpose to make it look like an accident," said Steve. "That, and/or the disease could already be contagious and spreading on its own. The victim count already more than doubled today."

"Good point," said Claudia. "We need to interview some of these theater girls."


	4. Chapter 4

"So you're saying it's either this guy Cumberland from the Arts Council trying to get his own school moved out of town, or some theater nerd so desperate for a part that she's sabotaging her classmates?" Pete asked in disbelief. He and Artie were talking to Steve over the Farnsworth outside of the school.

"We don't know which one makes more sense yet," Steve began.

"Both of them sound kinda crazy," Pete admitted.

Artie butted in from behind Pete. "_If _it were either of these cases, what kind of object should we be looking for?"

"I don't know, we think it could be a ring with a blue stone? Cumberland was wearing one when we talked to him. He's been creeping around here more creepily than me and Claude."

"What about the theater students?" Pete asked as Artie went to research rings in the Warehouse database.

"We don't have a specific idea for them yet, because Claudia is still looking into who it might be. We got a list of all the girls trying out for Perdita, the main female lead in _The Winter's Tale._ Emma Canning – most recent to get sick. Melissa Roberts – not a theater major, but planning to audition for Perdita, and sick. Elizabeth Laurel – one of the first to get sick before we got here. The only other name on the list is a girl named Shawna. Claudia's interviewing her now, and several students told us she's, quote, 'ultracompetitive.'"

"Sounds like a main suspect if I've ever heard of one," said Pete.

"Yeah. Their school day ended a little while ago, so Claudia's gonna get back to me with – "

"What? With the girl? Her artifact?" Pete asked after Steve broke off. All he could see on his Farnsworth screen was Steve's head tilted aside, looking away, in surprise. "Steve?"

Steve was looking at Claudia walking over with Shawna, who was sweating like a sinner in church and sneezing quiet "Eshu!"s every five seconds or so.

"I don't think it's Shawna," Claudia said bluntly.

"Shawna, listen to me," said Steve. "Did this come on all of a sudden, or have you been feeling sick all day?"

"All of a – sudden – Eshuu! I need to lay down…"

"She's on fire, Jinksy, I gotta bring her to the nurse."

"STEVE?" Pete asked for the fifth time, and Steve finally heard him and snapped his head back to the Farnsworth.

"Sorry," he replied. "Scratch the other-girl idea, she's sick now too. Most of the victims are having their symptoms come on all of a sudden."

Artie reappeared on screen. "So Cumberland is your main suspect now, then?"

"Yes."

"Well bad news, there's no information here on any rings with blue stones being any kind of artifact," he replied. "Keep trying."

And with that, in typical Artie style, he hung up the Farnsworth, before Pete could say goodbye.

Claudia returned. "I hate this assignment all of a sudden," she said. "I'm running out of ideas."

"It could still be Greg Cumberland," Steve pointed out, "but we have to interview some of the victims and their families tonight."

"Alright, well what do we know right now? Some students are spontaneously getting very sick, and others are developing their symptoms more gradually. I bet the ones with gradual symptoms are catching it from previously infected people, not directly from the artifact!"

"Yeah," Claudia agreed, "and the three we saw happen today, Melissa Roberts, Emma Canning and now Shawna – all of their symptoms came on out of nowhere."

"I thought for a second Shawna might be faking being sick to get out of you questioning her," Jinks added, "but she was telling the truth just now when she said it came on all of a sudden."

"Plus they said in there she had a temperature of 103," said Claudia. "It's getting worse, Jinksy."

"Okay, then we know which victims to focus on!"

They thought they had a plan. Well, they did, but it wasn't go so well.

"Well they weren't useful at all," Claudia sighed as he and Steve left the Roberts household. Their interviews with Melissa and her mother had been, in a word, unproductive. Shawna and her mother hadn't been of much assistance, either.

"We can still get some sort of helpful information at the Cannings' house," said Steve, but he was starting to lose faith, too.

The pair headed towards their car, but a familiar figure was walking towards them and the Robertses' house. It was Greg Cumberland, wrapped up in a black trench coat, making him even less visible in the dark Michigan night.

"You're here too?" he asked gruffly.

"We just left. They weren't any help, didn't give us any new information," said Steve.

"I'll find out for myself whether they'll be of help," Cumberland replied.

"Still on the job?" Claudia asked.

"I _need _to prove that that there's mold in that buildig that's causig this. We're sendig in an inspection team toborrow."

Steve noticed, besides the apparent stuffy voice, something white crumpled up in Cumberland's hand, though he might have been trying to hide it: a handkerchief.

"Wait, are you sick with it now too?" he asked.

He seemed almost ashamed to admit it, but he acquiesced with a hushed, "Yes. I have such a pounding headache now, and my fever's up."

"And you're sure it's all from some mold?"

"Yes!"

"Mr. Cumberland, were your symptoms sudden?" Claudia asked.

"No, it came on throughout the day! Now no more questions, let me through here! Good night!" And Cumberland pushed through and headed for the house.

"Jinksy?"

"Truth, the whole time…" Steve shook his head in disbelief. "He really believes the whole mold thing. He's not behind it."

Claudia was just as disgusted. "So that brings our list of leads, suspects, people with motives… to squadoosh." As she got into the car, she slammed the door behind her.

"It was so sudden, yes. It was very strange how it happened. She woke up this morning perfectly fine, and now she's a wreck," Mrs. Canning, Emma's mother, was telling Claudia and Steve.

"What have her symptoms been since she came home from school?" Steve asked.

"HAH-CHOOOO!"

"Well, there's that," Mrs. Canning chuckled nervously. "A lot of that." She seemed a bit embarrassed by Emma's sneezing, which could be heard from upstairs through the walls with seemingly no dampening of the volume. They reminded Claudia of her own sneezes, which were few and far between but uncontrollable and forceful. Not that she minded – they fit her personality perfectly.

"And her fever is still around 102, and she's getting chills. Do you know if it's the flu? Because she was vaccinated."

"We don't know yet, ma'am. Our team is working on it. Can we go up to Emma's room and ask some questions?" asked Steve.

"Oh, of course… are you going to need to quarantine any of us for this?" the worried mother asked.

The Warehouse agents looked at each other before Claudia improvised. "Uh, no, not yet. The sickness has spread, psh, barely at all yet, not enough for a quarantine, we're just looking into it…"

"OK, good, because her father and I have been seeing her, and she has a friend upstairs too."

The agents headed for the stairs, and Mrs. Canning was out of earshot. "Sometimes people are amazed I'm a human lie detector, but now I'm starting to think it's because there are people like you who are so bad at lying," Steve teased.

"Hey, I'm not bad at lying, just improvving on the spot!" Claudia replied. "But we really won't need to quarantine people, will we? Once we snag, bag and tag the thing? The longer this case goes, the more I feel like I'm actually from the Department of Health."

"I dunno the first thing about this stuff," Jinks admitted, "but I know this bunch of symptoms are weird. There isn't supposed to be this much sneezing in influenza, or this much of a fever in a cold."

Through the door, they heard another sneeze rip out of Emma's nose. "HEH-SHOOO!"

"Alright, so what are we asking in there?" Claudia asked as they reached Emma's door.

"Same stuff, Claude. You gotta believe something's gonna click soon."

"I'm running low on believing," she replied as she knocked on the door and opened it at the same time. "Hello?"

Emma Canning, the brunette who had had a loud, spontaneous sneezing fit in the middle of the school hallway earlier that day, had been reduced to a sweating, sniffling mess in her bed. She must have been cold, because she was under her covers, which was undoubtedly contributing to her sweating. She was presently being handed more tissues by the "friend" Emma's mother had referred to.

"Clayton, was it?" Claudia asked as Emma blew her nose.

"Yes, ma'am. Clayton Jasiak." He stood up to shake Claudia's hand, smiling.

"I interviewed him and the other girl at school when they took Melissa to the nurse," Claudia told Steve. "Emma, Clayton, you remember Agent Jinks and myself. We need to ask you a few more questions."

Their talk with the two teenagers went similarly to their interviews with Melissa and Shawna. Emma was in the middle of saying how heartbroken she was that she couldn't audition for Perdita that evening, but she hoped they would reschedule the audition when people weren't sick, et cetera, et cetera. Claudia had already zoned out, until Emma abruptly stopped.

"Huh, huh – HUH-CHOOO! Excuse be, I'b sorry!"

"Bless you, Emma!" Clayton almost jumped to be the first to say it, while handing her another tissue.

Steve directed his attention to him for a minute. "Clayton, how long have you been friends with Emma?"

"Oh, not very long. We only really met last year!"

"But I bet you're good friends now, seeing as you're here taking care of her."

"Oh, yes, we are good friends, I'd say," Clayton blushed but smiled. He started to wipe his glasses clean with a (fresh) tissue as an excuse to look away from the three pairs of eyes watching him. "We've just been getting much closer recently, and I really, really care about her. And I figured Mr. and Mrs. Canning had been busy all night taking care of Emma, so I offered to stop by and lend a hand!"

Claudia noticed Emma grinning like a fool in love and rubbing her irritated, pink nose during Clayton's monologue – an entertaining combination.

"You're just the sweetest, sweetest boy I know, Clay," she sighed, but her facial expression jumped from lovey-dovey to desperate. "Oh n-no, I'm going to sn-sneeh HAHSHEW!"

Another tissue and another "Bless you" from Clayton. Steve also said "Bless you" but shifted in his seat and looked away, and Claudia just looked down and said nothing.

With no help from his partner, Jinks had to wrap it up. "Well, thank you guys for your time. We hope you feel better, Emma, and we'll call your home if there are any developments in the case."

"Thank you!"

"Claude, let's go," he muttered to his partner, who still hadn't gotten out of her seat. She slowly got up and followed.

Steve wanted to beat her to the punch as to who could make the first joke about the awkward teenage couple, as soon as they got out the door. "I wanted to tell them to get a room, but they already had one," he smiled. He heard nothing from behind him. "Claude?"

He turned around and saw his friend standing still in the hallway, with the most agonizing-looking, screwed-up, pre-sneeze face he'd ever seen.

"Oh no."

"HATCHOOO!"

"Bless you!" Clayton and Emma, eager beavers, called out to her lightheartedly.

"I don't think I've ever seen you sneeze before. Tell me it's dust. Tell me you feel OK."

"I feel… I fe-heeehl… HA-CHOOO!"


	5. Chapter 5

"HAH-ESHHoo! HACHOO!"

"When we get inside, I want you to lay down right away."

Claudia had sneezed almost nonstop on the car ride to the motel she and Steve were staying in overnight, but now it was beginning to slow down. She'd never been embarrassed about anything about herself, including her loud and powerful sneezes. But now, she hated herself for getting sick with whatever this mystery artifact was dishing out, and the lack of control she had over her sneezes only intensified her feelings.

"I'b sorry, I'b sorry," she sputtered.

"Don't be, Claude, please. It isn't your fault." Steve opened the door to their room.

Claudia was also sweating profusely now – the only other main symptom this sickness seemed to produce – so Steve went straight to the bathroom to drench some washcloths in cold water for Claudia's head. He came back out with them, and she was still standing, blowing her nose with a honk.

"Claudia, lay down!"

"Sorry, sorry," she obeyed.

"No, no don't be – " Steve realized he was sending her mixed messages. "Look, it's OK, you're going to feel OK soon."

"I'b so hot," she winced.

"Yeah, I don't need a thermometer to tell you you have a fever." Steve remembered when they saw Melissa get sick, when she walked past him and he felt her body temperature coming off her like a space heater. Claudia was worse. Maybe it just seemed worse to him because she was his best friend and his partner.

"I'b dot gonna feel OK soon," Claudia complained suddenly. "We have no way of stoppig this because we-eeii, hih! HICHOO!"

"Bless you," Jinks told Claudia for the first time.

"Because we have no leads adymore, and none of the victims or fabilies helped us."

She had a point. "Do you remember touching anything at any of the houses tonight? Or anything the victims had, or anything?" Steve asked her.

"No, I did't touch adything, anywhere! Besides, who knows if there's a delay or, or a trigger or sobethig for the sybtoms to start la-ah, heh-ESHOO! HAAHCHOO!" Two sneezes took Claudia by surprise, too quickly for her to cover them.

"OK, let's break it down," Steve began. "Just from today only, according to what we know and to what Mrs. Harrison told us, nine people have gotten sick." He flipped through his file. "Four students before we even got to the school. Two of them had their symptoms come on gradually and the other two had them come on suddenly."

"Yeah, that seebs to be the only diversity with the victims," said Claudia.

"Right. Then, ever since we got to MAPA, Melissa, Emma, Shawna, Greg Cumberland and you all got sick. Everyone's symptoms came on suddenly – "

"Except Cubberland's, he said they were gradual throughout the day. Another dead end," Claudia moaned, before the itch returned to her nose. "Not agai – heh – HA-CHOOO! _God._"

Steve found Claudia's pack of tissues on the floor, opened it and put some in her hand. She blew her nose again, wetly.

"This is just sickness and misery for everyone," said Jinks. "Nobody has a motive to be doing this, no one's _gained_ anything from this."

"Except Claytod Jasiak. He bade out like a bandit," Claudia tried to laugh, which sounded more like a wince.

Steve's eyes grew wide. "Clayton Jasiak… Claude, what if Clayton _made_ Emma sick?"

"Why would he bake her sick if he liked her?" Claudia asked.

"Because by taking care of her while she's sick, he, uhh, showed Emma how sweet and caring he was? Which got her to like him! Maybe that was his plan all along!"

"That's a real stretch. And why would he make the other people si-sick? Ahh… AHSHOOO! Ugh. Attractive."

"I – Claude. That's it." Steve ran to get his file.

"What?"

"Of all the victims, the only ones whose symptoms were sudden – the only ones affected _directly _by the artifact – were female! He's not bothering giving them an actual cold. He's making them sneeze and just giving them a fever to cover it up!"

Claudia was still stumped. "Cover what up? Why?"

"Because he wants to see them sneeze! You said it before – 'attractive.'"

When it hit her, Claudia's face turned incredulous. "What? A sneezing fetish?"

"Trust me, it's not even that bad. I like other men, other people tie each other up. There's far worse than sneezing." Steve talked faster with a rush of excitement as he explained. "He was right with Emma when she started sneezing, he was one of the students in the audience who took Melissa to the nurse, and you started sneezing right after we left Clayton and Emma!"

"Come to think of it, I thought I saw him walk by the classroom I was questioning Shawna in…"

"There! Case closed!"

"Not exactly – I didn't touch adythig. What's the actual artifact?"

"Maybe you don't have to touch anything… Wait, his glasses! His big, Harry Potter glasses! What if he can make people sick just by looking at them through his glasses and wishing it?"

"That could be it…" Claudia trailed off, but it wasn't another sneeze affecting her. "Jinksy, I'b getting worse, I cad feel it. By… temperature…"

Steve was concerned but did his best not to fret in front of Claudia. "Okay, don't worry, I'm gonna get you more cold cloths and then call Artie."

In a flash Steve produced another wet washcloth for Claudia to use as a compress, and no sooner had he placed it on her steaming forehead than he grabbed his Farnsworth to call Artie.

"What do you have?" Artie asked when his face appeared on Steve's screen.

"Artie, we think it could be a pair of glasses. Like circular, dark-rimmed, Harry Potter type glasses. Do you have any – "

"Glasses, oh no." Artie typed something into his computer, and by the look on his face, his fears were confirmed. "Shirō Ishii's glasses," he told Steve frantically. He pointed his Farnsworth at the computer screen to show Steve a picture of an Asian army general wearing glasses exactly like Clayton's.

"Shirō Ishii was lieutenant general of Unit 731 in Japan. It was the Japanese center for biological warfare research during World War II. He killed thousands of innocent civilians and prisoners of war with you name it, cholera, anthrax, bubonic plague –"

"Artie, please don't tell me Claudia has the plague right now."

"Claudia? Is sick?" Artie's voice turned from his usual franticness to genuine worry.

"Yes, but the good news is we think we have our man – or, well, teenage kid. But is it the plague?"

"With the effects of the artifact, it doesn't matter whether she was infected with the plague or a common cold," said Artie. "The wearer can control the symptoms only for the first few days, and the progression of the disease is slow, but the glasses' effects mimic a real-life epidemic. If we don't stop this soon, we see the first people die in a few days."

"That'll include Emma…" said Jinks. "And Claudia. So we just have to go bag his glasses – "

"Afraid not, there's another downside," Artie explained. "Just like how neutralizing an artifact that killed someone doesn't reverse the death, neutralizing Ishii's glasses alone isn't going to reverse the disease."

"Then how do we cure it?"

"I don't like to do this," said Artie, "but we'll have to fight artifact with artifact. A healing artifact is the only thing that can stop a disease-causing artifact. Hippocrates's scalpel is what we need."

"Do we have it in the warehouse?" asked Steve.

"Unfortunately, no, it's in a museum in Greece. We've known it was there for a few years, but it was never a priority because it wasn't active, so I've been meaning to get around to it later, but we're always so busy – "

"It's a priority now!" Steve yelled over Artie's rambling. "Send Pete and Myka to get it! We're running out of time!" And with that, Steve shut his Farnsworth, hanging up on Artie.

Claudia had been watching this sequence from her bed, and, despite her state, tried to lighten their spirits with her usual charming spunkiness. "Look at you, hangig up od the old boss-man! Who's the big guy dow? Fight the authori – hi-hih-ESHEW!"

Steve sat down on the bed next to Claudia as she caught her breath. Her face was pale and sweaty from her fever, and her eyes showed her exhaustion, both physical and spiritual. She had tried to keep up a happy façade, but she gave up. "Jinksy…" she asked, "ab I gonna be okay?"

"Of course you're gonna be okay, Claude. Why would you ask that? We got this!" Steve said to mask his concern.

"_You_ got this. I've beed no help."

"You've already been a tremendous help!" said Steve. "You getting sick helped us figure out what the artifact is and who has it! Think of it as… taking one for the team."

Claudia bit her lip. "OK."

"Is that all that's upsetting you?"

"Yes."

"You're lying," Jinks said kindly.

"I know, I'b sorry… You are just the bravest, bravest persod I dow. You blew by mind before when you said you were bullied in school. I just – I can't imagine you being hurt like that! And now with Clayton's – situation, you can relate to him. Whatever that kid has goig od id his life, I know you cad reach out ad help hib."

"I hope I can," Steve smiled. "Now, I'm sure Pete and Myka are already on their way to Greece to pick up Hippocrates's scalpel to fix all of this. Then you'll be healthy and safe again. I'm sure, I'm _positive_ you're gonna make it through this. _We're _gonna make it through this."

Claudia had tears in her eyes as she nodded, but Steve wiped them away for her before kissing her on the cheek.


	6. Chapter 6Epilogue

Greece is several time zones ahead of the United States, so even though Pete and Myka went for Hippocrates's scalpel immediately in the middle of the night, it was morning when they arrived in Athens – not conducive to a museum theft. Still, the experienced agents, though jetlagged and on less than a full day's rest, were able to successfully replace the artifact scalpel for a dummy without conflict. (The scalpel's room being empty at the time helped a lot.)

Pete knew the severity of the situation, but decided to complain to Steve anyway when he and Myka reached the motel.

"That's three flights back and forth between here and Europe in two days, you know."

"Well it took you guys long enough." Steve was in no mood for kidding around.

"Sorry, there are no direct flights from Athens to Kalamazoo," said Pete. "Though it would make a cool song if there were…"

Myka crouched down beside Claudia, carrying the artifact. "Claudia, honey, wake up."

She wouldn't. The increasing severity of her illness kept her fast asleep as her body tried to recover on its own. However, it was about to receive a little outside help.

"Just slip it in her hand," Steve directed.

Myka did so. All one had to do was hold Hippocrates's scalpel for a few seconds, and any already curable illness would steadily be erased from the body.

"Her fever's already dropping," said Myka, feeling her forehead. "She'll be perfectly healed before she even wakes up."

Jinks could only smile. "Thank you, guys. Now, the rest might be tricky…"

He described the plan he had come up with to have each ill MAPA student touch the scalpel, which involved Pete and Myka posing as more Department of Health agents doing return house-call check-ups on each victim, and having each hold the scalpel without them knowing it would heal them. There were two of them but only one scalpel, so they couldn't even split up to avoid suspicion and save time. It was the best they could do, so they had to agree.

"And you're going to talk to Clayton and get the glasses?" said Myka.

"I'm going to take care of that at MAPA in the morning. I'll make sure he tells me exactly who he infected so we don't miss anybody."

"This was a weird one," Pete had to say as he and Myka were about to leave.

"Sometimes," Jinks thought, "it's not as weird as it seems."

Clayton had never been called to the principal's office before, and he had a burning feeling he knew exactly what it was about. The secretary confirmed his fears.

"Clayton, Agent Jinks from the Department of Health wants to follow up with you about something from yesterday."

"Oh – okay!"

The principal allowed Steve to borrow her office for the "interview," which he had promised wouldn't take long.

"Clayton."

"Agent Jinks! How do you do?"

"Perfectly well. I just wanted to go over a few more things with you here…"

"Of course!"

"How long have you had those glasses?"

"What? Oh – a few years now."

"Where did you get them?" Steve asked.

"…LensCrafters."

"You're lying." Clayton looked down at his lap. "But you're a good actor. Are you a theater major here?"

"Yes." A short pause. "I never wanted to hurt anybody."

Clayton looked surprised when Steve said, "I know."

"Really?"

"You're still growing up, man, figuring out the world around you. It's obvious you like Emma a lot. You wanted to show her you're a caring guy, not just any old guy at MAPA, but someone she could be sure isn't a selfish guy."

Steve realized he was improvising more than some of the students did in their theater classes, but he knew where he was going with it all. "But at the same time, it wouldn't be too bad seeing some of your other classmates sneeze, either. Melissa, Shawna…"

Clayton's blush grew more furious with every word he heard.

"Buddy, it's OK. I know your heart wasn't in the wrong place, and I know you're confused right now. But the glasses – "

"I just don't want to be made fun of," Clayton said suddenly.

"Clayton… I was just like you in high school. I tried to keep as low a profile as I could, but somebody I came out to wasn't as trustworthy as I thought, and pretty soon everyone knew. I wasn't proud of myself at that point, not yet. Not when it felt like the world hated me for being gay. But it gets better. High school can be a vicious place, but it's where you learn about life, not just academics. It's where you grow up, make friends, learn lessons like this."

A few tears had run down his face before, but Clayton seemed calmer now.

"Your lesson just happened to involve a supernatural object that you didn't know the dangers of…"

"I found them in a box in my attic a few weeks ago," Clayton said about Ishii's glasses as he took them off. "They have fake lenses in them now – I don't need prescription glasses, I just thought they looked cool. Then a few days ago, it was an accident, I swear, I was just imagining a girl in the cafeteria getting sick and – and then it was just happening right there in front of me!

He took a breath and continued spilling his guts. "I couldn't believe it! I tried wishing for other stuff but it only worked when I wanted a girl to sneeze. Even last night, I couldn't stop myself, I made your partner sick. But then I found out yesterday some of the others were getting worse, and it was spreading and everything, and I didn't want that. I lost control of them, I guess. Last night I tried wishing for Emma to be better, but it wasn't working. I – I got scared…" Tears had started building up again.

"It's better this way," Steve said. "That you're telling me the truth, I mean. My team is in the process of fixing it right now. Agent Donovan is healed. Emma is healed."

"Emma is better?"

Steve could tell Clayton genuinely cared about Emma and loved her… It was a love similar to how he loved Claudia, but obviously with an element of romance, too.

"She's better," Jinks confirmed, smiling. "But obviously, I need to confiscate your glasses."

"Take them. I never want to see them again."

Steve took them and kept them in his pocket. He'd drop them in the neutralizing bag later, when nobody was around to see. They wouldn't have any affect sitting in his pocket, anyway.

"Clayton… you know, if you're ever bullied, about anything, you should talk to someone. If you don't want to talk to your parents about it, the school counselor here could help, or a friend you trust. That was my mistake in high school, not going to someone sooner."

"But as of right now, only you and I know about all of this, right?" Clayton asked.

"Yes sir."

"So you won't tell anyone about the glasses or anything?"

Steve smiled again. "As long as you don't tell anyone, either."

"It turns out his grandfather was a World War II veteran in the Polish army who had been stationed very close to Unit 731," Steve was telling Claudia as they drove out of Kalamazoo, "and somehow Ishii's old glasses got mixed in with this guy's stuff when he was being discharged."

"That's crazy stuff," Claudia said. "A lot of these old artifacts somehow get passed down by the guy's father's father's father's father."

Steve just chuckled, glad Claudia was back to her old self again.

"Oh, and in other news, I never want to be sick again," she declared. "With anything, of any kind, artifact- or non-artifact-related."

"Nobody _wants_ to get sick!"

"But if you had what I just had, you'd hate the idea with a burning passion."

"I'm sure that when we get home, Pete and Myka will try to annoy us by fake sneezing everywhere," Jinks pointed out.

"Well, we can just talk in Irish accents to get back at them!"

They laughed, but then Claudia got serious.

"Jinksy… I'm sorry about the whole, you know. Bullying thing."

"Claude, it's cool."

"No, no, I really learned something. I mean, it isn't like I was voted most popular at school either. I was busy doing my own thing, including the whole, you know, psychiatric hospital time. But I think it's in my nature to be sarcastic to try to be funny, and I don't mean to be a bully. I just… I never want to hurt you."

"It's okay. We're good."

"We're good?"

"Why wouldn't we be? We bagged another dangerous artifact, saved the world again, you aren't sick anymore, and we're going home." Jinks smiled at Claudia.

The cute moment was interrupted as Claudia felt something she hoped she'd never feel again.

"Uh oh…"

"What?"

"HAH-CHOOO!"

Steve didn't bless her. All he could think to say was, "Is this gonna be a regular thing now?"

And all Claudia could do was laugh with and smile at her best friend.

**Shirō Ishii's glasses.** Shirō Ishii was the lieutenant general of Unit 731, Japan's biological warfare research center during the Second Sino-Japanese War and World War II. He experimented greatly with germ warfare, and in his time infected tens of thousands of prisoners of war and innocent civilians with bubonic plague, cholera, anthrax and other diseases. The wearer of his glasses has the ability to infect anyone with any disease he wishes, if he looks at his victim through the glasses and wishes it. No matter what disease is inflicted, it mirrors an exaggerated epidemic: it begins small-scale for the first few days, then becomes increasingly contagious and deadly, even if it starts as something trivial like the common cold.


End file.
